


S58 



CHARLES EDWARD SMITH 




Class ; ,__ 

Book '^L 

Copyright N?. 



CORffilGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE FACTS OF FAITH 



BY 
CHARLES EDWARD SMITH, D.D. 

Author of " Baptism in Fire," 
"The World Lighted" 



" Walk about Zion, and go round about her ! 
Tell the towers thereof ! 
Mark ye well her bulwarks ! 
Consider her palaces ! 
That ye may tell it to the generations following." 

Psalms xlviii: 12, 13. 

"The supreme need of the hour is not elastic currency, or sounder 

banking, or better protection against panics, or bigger navies, or 

more equitable tariffs, but a revival of faith, a return to a morality 

which recognizes a basis in religion." ... „ Pj J T , 

Wall Street Journal. 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH &> COMPANY 

1910 



Copyright, 1910 
Sherman, French 6^ Company 






©CLA256J 6 



TO 
MY BELOVED 

WIFE AND DAUGHTER 
AND THE TWO FRIENDS 

ASSOCIATION WITH WHOM HAS LONG GIVEN 
ME SO MUCH PLEASURE AND WHO, BY THEIR 
INTEREST IN THIS WORK AND THEIR WISE 
COUNSEL REGARDING IT, HAVE CONTRIBUTED 
TO ITS PRODUCTION, IT IS AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED 



FOREWORD 

I deem it only fairness to myself and my read- 
ers to say that the facts given are, primarily, the 
facts of my own faith, which I recognize as as- 
sured beyond reasonable doubt, and therefore 
rest upon without misgiving. 

At the same time since my faith and the facts 
which it recognizes are, in general, the same that 
are known as Protestant Christianity, they have 
the endorsement of that great body of Christian 
people whose claim to be the most intelligent, 
well-informed, and consistent representatives of 
Christianity it is hard to* dispute. 

Moreover, since other very large communions 
claiming to be Christians, while differing very 
widely from Protestants in many important re- 
spects, yet agree with them regarding many 
fundamental facts and truths, this agreement 
must be admitted to swell to very large propor- 
tions the number of those for whom the facts of 
this book are the real and undisputed "facts of 
the Faith." 

I have set them down under the impulse to 
make clear to myself just what I believe, and 
what good and sufficient reason I have for be- 
lieving it, knowing full well how much is gained 



FOREWORD 

in clearness of thought, and precision of state- 
ment, and, therefore, in confidence of correctness, 
by compelling one's self to reduce the random 
and floating ideas of the mind to exact and posi- 
tive expression. 

But although this work has been done, first of 
all, for my own benefit, I am not without the 
strong hope that it may prove of advantage to 
others. 

Robert Browning once wrote to a friend, 
" I want you to give my conviction a clinch." 

There are a good many of us, Christian 
believers, who need to have our convictions 
clinched. We have been living so long in an 
atmosphere of doubt; unbelief has been so ar- 
rogant and aggressive, and never more so than 
now, that it is not strange that faith should 
sometimes waver as to the value of its own evi- 
dences. 

It will be a great satisfaction to me if this 
exhibit of facts of faith, which reassures me, 
should also reassure any of my brothers who 
have been unnecessarily alarmed by the giant 
fire-crackers of infidelity. 

And if, in addition to this, I am able to 
awaken the attention, arouse the interest, and 
enlist the serious and heartfelt consideration of 
other minds in matters which so greatly concern 



FOREWORD 

them as facts of Christian faith, I shall accom- 
plish a purpose for which I shall be profoundly 
grateful, and with which I am sure God will be 
well pleased. 

C. E. S. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. The Value of Facts .... 1 



II. The Selection of Facts . 

III. Faith Its Own Judge of the 

Facts 

IV. The Fact of Self .... 
V. The Fact of Revelation . 

VI. The Fact of Jesus Christ . 

VII. The Fact of the Church . 

VIII. The Fact of Christian Experi 
ence 

IX. The Fact of Nature . 

X. Disputed Facts Now Proved . 



8 

11 
21 
32 
39 

45 

50 
55 
63 



XI. A Final Survey of the Facts . 77 



THE VALUE OF FACTS 

There are a good many people who do not 
know the value of facts — at any rate in the 
most important province of thought and life, 
which is, of course, the province of religion. 

They have an idea that all religions are 
equally true, and, perhaps, equally false. They 
see that the votaries of each seem equally cer- 
tain of the truth and value of their own system, 
and equally determined to live and die accord- 
ing to its teachings. From this they conclude 
that these various religions are either of no con- 
sequence at all, or are all equally useful for re- 
ligious purposes. 

Is there, then, no important difference between 
them? Is there no> means of discriminating the 
true from the false, and the real and precious 
from the unreal and worthless? 

Suppose it could and should be shown that 
Christianity, and Christianity alone, is based on 
facts, and that all others are based on fictions! 
Would that not be a sufficient reason for re- 
garding Christianity as the one true and abso- 



2 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

lute religion, and all the others as counterfeits, 
which must, sooner or later, pass away? 

The superior value of facts in other directions 
there is no difficulty in realizing. 

A gold mine is a fact. That gold is actually 
taken from such a mine, there is abundant and 
satisfactory evidence, which puts the matter be- 
yond all doubt. 

That gold can be extracted from baser metals, 
such as lead and iron, is a theory, which was 
widely received in the middle ages, and many 
lives and much treasure were devoted to the dis- 
covery of a process by which gold could be ob- 
tained from that source. Occasionally this 
theory is revived in these days. But nobody 
has ever succeeded in getting gold in this way, 
though the alchemists, as they were called, were 
very sure it could be done. 

A gold mine is a positive, substantial, certain 
fact, in which it is wise and sane to believe. 

Alchemy is an unproved theory, in which to 
put any confidence would be foolish in the ex- 
treme. 

Wireless telegraphy was at first a mere theory, 
which might possibly be true, but which needed 
to be demonstrated before it could be accepted. 
But when, in crossing the ocean, I actually read 
a message which a fellow passenger* had re- 



THE FACTS OF FAITH 3 

ceived from his father on board a steamship a 
hundred miles away, in answer to an inquiry 
telegraphed by my fellow passenger from our 
own ship, I was sure that wireless telegraphy 
was no longer a mere theory ; it had become an 
accomplished fact. 

A theory may be true or it may be false. 
While that remains undetermined, conduct can- 
not be safely based upon it. But a fact is a 
sure foundation, if it be big enough and strong 
enough, for the superstructure which it is pro- 
posed to rear. 

The examples which have been given illustrate 
the superior value of facts over theories. In 
one case the facts destroyed the theory, though 
it had been long and tenaciously held; in the 
other the facts established the theory, though 
it had been stubbornly disputed and widely dis- 
believed. 

Every trial in a court of justice makes mani- 
fest the general realization of the superior im- 
portance of facts. Witnesses are questioned 
as to the facts they know, not the opinions they 
may hold, regarding the merits of the case under 
consideration. Each advocate endeavors to 
show that the facts are on his side rather than on 
his opponent's. 

The single fact that the paper on which a 



4 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

promissory note was written bore a water-mark 
later than the date once overturned all the claims 
and arguments of the holder of the note. 

The fact that the almanac showed that the 
moon was not shining, on a certain night in 
which a person was accused of having committed 
a crime, proved the accused to be innocent, and 
secured his acquittal. 

All progress in science is progress in the 
knowledge of the facts. Theories are main- 
tained or abandoned as they are found to agree 
or disagree with the facts ascertained. It was 
once believed that the world was flat, and George 
Kennan found a high Buddhist dignitary in 
Siberia who still adheres to that notion ; but the 
world generally knows too much to do that. 
The single fact that the earth can be sailed 
around destroys the theory. 

Right here it becomes necessary to show the 
difference between faith and credulity. They 
are often confounded, and spoken of as essen- 
tially the same. 

Faith is confidence in facts, and truths sup- 
ported by facts. Credulity is confidence in 
theories, or imaginations, or assertions, which 
are unsubstantiated by facts or any reliable 
proof. 

Faith is often misrepresented as confidence 



THE FACTS OF FAITH 5 

which is the strongest when that which is be- 
lieved in is the most improbable. On the con- 
trary, faith demands not only probability, but 
probability approaching certainty. It asks for 
positive and incontrovertible evidence. It is 
credulity that is willing to believe without evi- 
dence, and, though it sometimes strains out a 
gnat, swallows a camel without difficulty. The 
wilder the fiction, the greater the lie, the more 
impossible the fraud, the readier is credulity to 
believe in it and to live by it. 

I say believe, and as credulity believes, so it 
may be said to have a kind of faith. It is 
obvious that we must discriminate between the 
two senses in which the word is used. By faith 
I mean that which saves, not that which 
destroys. I mean the faith which is said, in 
Scripture, to work by love, and purify the 
heart, and overcome the world — that is, Chris- 
tian faith. 

If, now, it can be shown that Christian faith 
alone rests upon facts, and truths supported by 
facts, and all other religions, as well as irre- 
ligious, have no facts worthy of confidence, the 
vast difference between Christianity and other 
beliefs and unbeliefs will disclose itself, and 
Christian faith take its rightful place as the 
only belief that is any better than credulity. 



6 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

It becomes all the more necessary to perceive 
this for the reason that we are being assured in 
our day, as perhaps never before, that the facts 
of Christianity are of no consequence. 

The assailants of Christianity attempt to 
shake public confidence in every historical state- 
ment in both Old and New Testaments. They 
endeavor to take away from us the facts of 
Revelation, Incarnation, the Sinless Christ, his 
Atoning Death, his Triumphant Resurrection, 
and everything beside on which Faith can rest. 

But at the same time they assure us that 
Christianity remains ; that these facts are of no 
consequence; that we still have the essential 
ideas of Christianity; that the temple of truth 
which has been built upon the " foundation of 
the apostles and prophets," Jesus Christ himself 
being " the chief corner-stone," will still stand, 
and even be firmer than before, when its founda- 
tion is taken away. 

What is this? Is it common sense? 

Is it the unthinking carelessness of miners, 
who in their greediness for gain excavate great 
caverns beneath a town until its weight breaks 
the crust, and it tumbles into the abyss? 

Is it the strategy of enemies, who conceal 
their sapping and mining from the garrison of 
the fortress they are besieging, until they have 



THE FACTS OF FAITH 7 

placed their explosives beneath the fortifications, 
and can topple them into ruins? 

Or is it only the brainless word-mongering of 
theorists, like the old philosophers, who said that 
all the qualities of a substance may be removed, 
and yet the substance remains ? 

Whatever it is, it is best that we should ap- 
praise it at its real value. 

If the enemies of Christianity make great ef- 
forts to remove the facts on which it rests, do 
they not thereby show how important those facts 
are in their own estimation ? 

Let us not be cheated out of that which is 
unspeakably precious! Let no one, whether 
he be seeming friend or apparent foe, deceive us 
as to the value of the great facts of religion on 
which Christianity, and Christianity alone, rests 
with a firmness and immovableness like that of 
the everlasting hills ! 



II 



THE SELECTION OF FACTS 

If it should be claimed that other religions 
besides the Christian are also based upon facts, 
it becomes necessary to ask, what kind of facts 
afford a true and safe foundation for a religious 
hope? 

In some sense, everything is a fact, or per- 
haps it may be better to say that there is a fact 
about everything. It is a fact that men have 
had all sorts of notions, fancies, dreams, and 
have made all sorts of guesses, on every con- 
ceivable subject. But all those notions, fancies, 
dreams and guesses have not been correct, val- 
uable and practical conceptions of the subjects 
about which they have been made. 

On the contrary, many of them have been 
false, worthless, misleading and pernicious when 
the subject had any important relation to life, 
conduct and happiness. 

A small boy having heard that Mr. Roosevelt 
had gone to Africa to shoot lions, left his 
father's house in an American town, expecting 
to shoot lions with his toy gun. It was a fact 

8 



THE SELECTION OF FACTS 9 

that he had such an expectation, but there were 
no facts on which such an expectation could be 
reasonably based. 

Savages in Africa are said to be in mortal 
fear of a gigantic scare-crow, called Mumbo 
Jumbo. A man of whom they have no fear at 
all in his ordinary appearance disguises him- 
self with a towering head-dress of sticks and old 
clothes, and straightway he becomes the arbiter 
of life and death, and is submitted to and wor- 
shipped as a god. It is a fact that the savages 
have these absurd and degrading ideas, but those 
ideas do not spring from any facts worthy of the 
consideration of a rational being. 

We must wisely select our facts, then, when we 
set out to choose our religion. The kind of 
facts on which any religion is based determines 
the character of the religion. 

Are all religions based on equally substantial 
and pertinent facts? If not, then they are not 
all equally worthy of respect and confidence. 
If, upon investigation, it should be found that 
one, and but one, and that one, Christianity, 
has the facts to support it which religion ab- 
solutely needs — then we must conclude that 
only Christianity is entitled to our confidence, 
and must command and obtain our confidence. 



10 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

This is what the Author of the Christian 
religion himself claimed. He said : " There- 
fore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, 
and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise 
man, which built his house upon a rock; and the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell 
not; for it was founded upon a rock." (Matt, 
vii. 24) 

Was he not right in reminding us that we must 
have firm foundations for our religion? 

One's religion is the house of his soul, within 
which he must find rest from care, comfort from 
sorrow, safety from those tremendous storms of 
remorse and retribution to which, as a sinful and 
responsible being, he is liable, sooner or later. 
It needs to be built on rock, not sand. 

Religion is the bridge on which the soul must 
cross the gulf between earth and heaven. Its 
piers must be sunk through the concealing waters 
and the overlying mud to the bed-rock of the 
sea. No matter how much time and trouble it 
may cost; that rock must be reached and built 
upon, or the bridge is worthless. 

What is that rock? What are those rock- 
like facts which together may furnish a founda- 
tion as steadfast and immovable as the moun- 
tains ? 



Ill 

FAITH ITS OWN JUDGE OF THE 
FACTS 

The right, duty and necessity of private 
judgment, in all matters affecting welfare, duty 
and destiny, are illustrated and enforced by many 
of the saddest and most tragic pages of human 
history. 

How many fatal accidents have occurred at rail- 
road crossings of public thoroughfares, because 
of too trustful dependence upon careless flag- 
men, and the failure to use their own eyes and 
ears most sedulously by those who were ven- 
turing into dangerous places ! 

The power to doubt is the necessary balance 
of the power to trust, and the safety of the soul, 
in a world like ours, is guarded by its intelli- 
gent and judicious exercise. 

That part of the Bible which exhorts us to 
put our hearty faith in its proper objects is no 
wiser or more divine than its earnest warnings 
not, credulously, to accept the ideas and pre- 
tensions of false teachers and false prophets. 
That these warnings are needed is proved by the 
tremendous fact that the religious history of 
11 



12 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

the greater part of mankind, down to the present 
time, has been that of blind leaders of the blind, 
of great multitudes accepting, unquestioningly, 
the pretensions of impostors, and of whole na- 
tions and races hopelessly ensnared by an un- 
scrupulous and tyrannical priestcraft. 

It is for every one, then, as he cares for his 
eternal destiny, to judge for himself, with all 
the faculties he possesses and all the help he 
can get, what the facts of religion really are, 
and how they affect his own soul's welfare, and 
that of others for whom he cares and for whose 
guidance he is responsible. 

And Christian faith must judge for itself, 
with all its native and acquired qualifications, 
what facts it can and must recognize as true 
and solid foundations. 

I want to show how many the facts are, how 
great they are, how substantial, how sufficient, 
as the strong, indestructible foundation on which 
Faith, and Faith alone, may be seen to rest. 

I am of the opinion that Faith often fails to 
understand and appreciate itself, and am sure 
that those who do not possess it underrate and 
despise it. They do not perceive how mighty a 
power it is, and how beneficent its function in 
human life and human history. They con- 
found it with credulity, and regard doubt as the 



FAITH ITS OWN JUDGE 13 

superior faculty. They suppose that, like 
credulity, it builds its house of confidence and 
hope on the " wood, hay and stubble " of fancies 
and speculations and falsehoods, instead of the 
" gold, silver and precious stones " of realities 
and well ascertained truth. 

I would like to show how mistaken, and there- 
fore misleading and pernicious, are these ideas, 
and how much more confident of itself Faith has 
a right to be than it often is. 

I would have Faith follow the counsel of 
Scripture to " walk about Zion, and go round 
about her; tell the towers thereof. Mark ye 
well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye 
may tell it to the generation following." 
(Psalm xlviii. 12, 13) 

I believe that if we can take this walk ix>- 
gether, and observe these " towers " and " bul- 
warks," we shall be so impressed with the fact 
that they are impregnable as to be able to rest 
in the assurance that " this God is our God for 
ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto 
death." 

But in order to reach this assurance we must 
proceed thoughtfully, intelligently, with an 
honest purpose to discover the truth, and a will- 
ingness to give it fair and thorough considera- 
tion. 



14 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

Above all, we must be clear. We must take 
no step without knowing just what we mean. 
Religious errors and uncertainties are largely 
the result of ignorances, misrepresentations and 
misapprenhensions. 

There are too many who are satisfied to see 
truth dimly and indefinitely, like Edward Irving, 
the friend of Carlyle, and for a time the assist- 
ant of Dr. Thomas Chalmers. Alluding to the 
exactness and precision of Chalmers in his teach- 
ing, Irving said that, for his part, he liked to 
see an idea " looming up through a fog." 

There are too many spiritual navigators who 
are unwilling to take the trouble to decide 
whether it be land or fog toward which they are 
sailing, and therefore get wrecked on an iron- 
bound coast. 

Edward Irving's mental habit finally carried 
him and his church upon the reef of a fanatical 
belief that they could exercise the power of 
speaking with hitherto unknown tongues, such 
as were spoken in the apostolic age. 

Let us understand at the outset, then, just 
what we mean by faith as well as what we mean 
by facts, when we are about to> survey the Facts 
of Faith. 

By faith I mean that noblest exercise of the 
power of trusting in persons or things, which, 



FAITH ITS OWN JUDGE 15 

in a world where there were no deceptions or 
illusions, deceivers or impostors, would be the 
normal feeling of the soul, and at once a privi- 
lege, a duty and a joy. 

By faith I mean the power which the Christian 
soul possesses, though it finds itself in a world 
where appearances are often deceitful and false 
teachers abound, of selecting the objects of its 
confidence with all needful prudence, calling to 
its aid all its faculties of investigation and 
judgment, and, when satisfied of their worthi- 
ness, reposing in them a trust strong because in- 
telligent, and unfaltering because bulwarked by 
proof. 

And what do I mean by facts? I mean events 
which have certainly taken place, truths which 
have been established, beings and things whose 
reality is sufficiently apparent to the faith which 
I have described. 

Faith which realizes the supreme importance 
of its quest appreciates its responsibility for 
making true decisions, uses all its faculties and 
opportunities for investigation, takes time 
enough to fully consider and reconsider its con- 
clusions ; it is this faith which I make the quali- 
fied judge of what deserve to be called facts, 
which demand and must receive consideration in 
the settlement of great religious questions. 



16 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

The facts which such a faith recognizes, ac- 
cepts and uses it may well feel sure of, even 
though they are denied by more than one class 
of persons. 

The skeptic who cultivates doubt until it be- 
comes a mental disease, and reaches its climax 
in doubting that he doubts, shows a lack of 
sound judgment, which deprives his opinion of 
all value. 

Isaac Taylor, an acute English philosopher, 
said " To one who affected to question the re- 
ceived account of the death of Julius Caesar, we 
should not say ' you want faith, 5 but ' you want 
sense. 9 " 

The theorist who is so possessed by his 
theory that facts which disagree with it and 
destroy it remain unseen and disregarded, is not 
a judge whose opinions can be respected. There 
have always been many such persons, whose in- 
fatuation with ideas which pleased them has 
rendered them blind and deaf to the facts which 
rendered those ideas impossible. 

At this present time, the theory that all re- 
ligious ideas have been evolved by man out of 
the darkness of primeval ignorance and sav- 
agery, without the least aid from a supernatural 
revelation, is persistently maintained by many 
educated men, in spite of the fact that such a 



FAITH ITS OWN JUDGE 17 

revelation has been made and is shedding the 
light of a revelation all around us. 

It is like denying that the sun shines in the 
full radiance of the noon day. 

The atheist and the agnostic, to whom this 
wonderful Universe, of which Alexander Pope, 
in his Essay on Man, so truly said, " Order is 
Heaven's first law, 55 presents no evidence of a 
Supreme Mind, and who can believe, or seem to 
believe, that the adaptations, adjustments and 
contrivances with which the Universe abounds, 
are only happenings of " the fortuitous con- 
course " of uncreated " atoms, 55 can not be ex- 
pected to accept the facts of Faith. But that 
rejection loses all importance when it is con- 
sidered that the most likely explanation of such 
minds is in some fatal disease of the perceptive 
and reasoning faculties, which renders their con- 
clusions on such* matters worthless, So, cer- 
tainly, thought the author of the line, 

" The undevout astronomer is mad." 

An astronomer once reproached an atheist who 
inquired who was the maker of a fine orrery, a 
mechanical model of the solar system, which 
he found in the astronomers study, with his in- 
consistency in refusing to believe that the far 
superior mechanism of the Universe had a Con- 



18 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

triver, while he could not be persuaded that the 
parts of the orrery had come together by 
chance. 

There Is another who cannot be expected to 
accept the facts of Faith: it is the opposer of 
Christianity because it is too good for him. 
Nothing can be more certain than that immoral 
and unrighteous dispositions so bias and cloud 
intelligence that the mind becomes incapable of 
correct judgment. 

Richard Cecil, as a youth, fell into depraved 
habits, and then deliberately read infidel books 
in order to quiet his conscience by plausible 
answers to the Bible. In this way he became 
an infidel himself, and led others into infidelity, 
whom he could never bring back again. 

Of such Jesus said, " They love darkness 
rather than light because their deeds are evil." 

Objections to the facts of Faith are, then, to 
be expected from all these classes, and from 
others not here mentioned; but there is some- 
thing about them all which makes their objec- 
tions worthless. 

The skeptic, full of morbid doubt about 
everything ; the theorist, enamored of his hobby, 
and as incapable of rational guidance as a run- 
away horse with the bit between his teeth; the 
agnostic, who, because he cannot know every- 



FAITH ITS OWN JUDGE 19 

thing about God, insists that he cannot know 
anything; and the bad man, who does not care 
what is true or right, but only what is agreeable 
to a depraved nature, — the fact that all these 
deny the facts of Faith is not an argument 
against them, but for them. 

On the other hand, the character of those who 
accept the facts of Faith is a powerful argument 
for the correctness of those facts. It is the 
" pure in heart " who " see God." It is they 
" who will do the will of God " who may expect 
to " know of the doctrines." Jesus said, " They 
who are of the truth hear my voice." 

If we can have the consensus of such spirits, 
we may be sure of the foundation stones on 
which we build our faith. If these be " for us " 
it matters not who are " against us." 

" I design the search after truth," said Bishop 
Butler, " as the business of my life." Where 
is the person among all the opponents of Chris- 
tianity, the acuteness of whose intellect, the 
openness of whose mind, the fairness of whose 
judgment, the extent of whose learning, and the 
excellence of whose character, qualify him to 
stand side by side with Bishop Butler, the 
author of the famous Analogy, of which the 
noble Gladstone edited a new edition in the 
closing years of his memorable career? 



20 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

It would be hard to find him. But the peers 
of Butler, as qualified searchers after the great 
truths of religion — may I not say without fear 
of contradiction? — are numberless among 
those who accept the Christian religion. 

We have a right to feel confidence in the ver- 
dict of such a jury. 

And we ourselves, though humble and obscure, 
if our search be honest, careful and worthy of 
the subject, may well hope to arrive at sane and 
sound conclusions regarding the facts of faith. 



IV 



THE FACT OF SELF 

Am I myself a fact? And is this question, 
necessarily, the beginning of Faith's search for 
certainty? 

Assuredly it is the beginning. Presumptuous 
and vain as it may seem, when we are looking for 
rock-like foundations we must begin with our- 
selves. Humble as we may seem, low as we may 
estimate our own powers, uncertain as we may 
be about much, or even most, of what is in- 
cluded in self, we must be sure of something in 
that self. If we are not sure of ourselves we 
can be sure of nothing else. 

We must begin here, or we shall end no 
where ! 

To begin with, I must be sure of myself as an 
honest seeker after truth. 

No other deserves to find the truth, or indeed 
is capable of finding it. The natural and in- 
evitable penalty of endeavoring to deceive others 
is to deceive one's self. 

Not to be fair in the judgment of evidence, 
not to be candid in the consideration of facts, 
to be willing to mistake error for truth, and to 
21 



m THE FACTS OF FAITH 

feel pride in making wrong look like right, is to 
dull one's perceptive faculties, and to foredoom 
one's self to become the victim of illusions and 
falsities. 

The dishonest soul necessarily doubts honesty 
in others. There is not in himself the quality 
which he needs to find elsewhere, and missing it 
at home, in his own soul, he suspects its absence 
everywhere. 

Faith begins and must begin with faith in 
one's self; if not in one's sinlessness, at least in 
one's sincerity. 

That is the first fact for faith to build with. 

And the second is that the tool he must work 
with to acquire real knowledge, the structure of 
his own mind, is an honest instrument, so con- 
structed as to give correct results, and not to 
deceive and mislead one. 

To measure with a yard stick that is more or 
less than thirty-six inches is to mistake the length 
one wishes to find. To weigh with dishonest 
scales is to cheat the buyer. 

Theodore Parker once wrote, " It is for others 
to decide whether I have mistaken a little grain 
of brilliant dust in my telescope for a fixed star 
in heaven." 

But one must know for himself that there is 
no dust in his telescope to deceive his vision. 



THE FACT OF SELF 23 

There are those who distrust the soul's power 
to discover truth on account of the deceptiveness 
of its faculties. 

They think that the very plan of the mind 
is a false plan, so that neither do the senses nor 
does the consciousness tell the truth about what 
they pretend to perceive. If this were true we 
should lack the very capacity for knowledge. 
If this were true the Author of our being would 
be a monster of deceptions, and the Universe a 
sham and an illusion. 

At the outset, then, we must decide whether we 
will accept this view, or begin our search for 
facts with the faith that an honest Universe 
awaits our study, and a mind honestly con- 
structed, and needing only to be fairly used, is 
to serve as our instrument. 

Let me, then, set down, first of all, the facts 
that I am sure of about myself. 

I am, perfectly sure of my own existence; that 
I am alive, not dead; that I am awake, not 
dreaming; that my life is a reality, not an illu- 
sion, and is to be reckoned with as a fact . 

I am sure that I am a person, a conscious, 
thinking, reasoning, feeling, willing, acting 
person; that, as such, I am far superior to and 
entirely distinguishable from the world of 
thmgs; that, in some respects, I am wonderfully 



24 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

and awfully separate from all other persons, in 
the Universe, while, in other respects, I am no 
less wonderfully and awfully related to them. 

/ am sure that I am a soul, and have a body; 
that however useful and even necessary my body 
is in this present state of existence, it is only 
the instrument which the soul uses, and not the 
soul itself. That it should be as good an in- 
strument as possible, and therefore is to be 
taken care of most sedulously, is a matter of 
course; but my great concern should be regard- 
ing the nature, character and welfare of the 
soul, which is myself. 

I am sure that I am a knowing person ; that, 
within certain limits, I have the power of recog- 
nizing facts and perceiving truth. Not that I 
can know everything even about myself, but that 
I can know something, sufficient for practical 
purposes in any important direction. 

/ am sure that this power of knowing extends 
so far that I am perfectly able to perceive the 
truth of principles and the reality of facts 
which I could not myself discover. What some 
other mind, superior to mine in ability and 
larger in knowledge, might reveal to me, I am 
entirely competent to apprehend. For by far 
the greater part of my knowledge I am indebted 
to others who had larger powers or better op- 



¥ He fact of self , U 

j)ortunities than my own. Isaac Newton has 
instructed me in mathematics and astronomy, 
and Tacitus and Motley have been my teachers 
in history. I am not shut up to the facts which 
I can perceive and possess unaided. And again, 
I am not vain enough to think that no being in 
this universe knows any more than myself. 

However, within certain limits, I may modestly, 
I must truthfully, assert and acknowledge that 
I am sure of my own faculties. 

I am sure that my senses are trustworthy 
means of information regarding material things, 
for I have proved their trustworthiness in num- 
berless instances. When their testimony is 
clear, positive and united I cannot doubt its cor- 
rectness. Even the theorists who dispute that 
testimony, I observe, take their fingers out of the 
fire as uniformly as I do. 

I am sure, too, of my consciousness as a truth- 
ful revealer of my inner life, though not of all 
that life. I know that there is more of my soul 
than what I am conscious of, but as far as I am 
conscious of mental states they are as real to me 
as the material world. 

/ am\ sure of those intuitive truths which I 
share with every other human being, which are 
the foundations of all knowledge and a part of 
the very structure of the mind. Among these, 



26 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

and one of the most important, is the axiom that 
" eoery effect must have a cause " adequate to 
produce it. The contrary to this is simply un- 
thinkable. Sophists have cast doubt upon its 
validity, but every one knows it, though he can- 
not tell how he knows it, and every one acts 
upon it continually. It is an irresistible intui- 
tion of the soul. 

Another intuition which I am sure of is the 
distinction between right and wrong, and that I 
ought to do and be the right and not the wrong. 
How I make this distinction I do not know, but I 
do make it, and that it is a real distinction by 
which I ought to be governed I do not and can- 
not doubt. It is a moral intuition of which I 
am absolutely sure, and of which I stand in awe. 
The German philosopher Kant said that two 
things filled him with awe, the starry heavens and 
the moral law. Both are sublime objects of 
thought, but I doubt not Kant would agree with 
me in saying that, of the two, the more impres- 
sive and awe-inspiring fact is the moral law vn> 
the soul. 

Darwin is said to have become uncertain of 
his intuitions through the influence of his theory 
of man's evolution from the brutes. This is a 
notable instance of the manner in which a 



THE FACT OF SELF 27 

theorist confuses and bewilders his own percep- 
tions of the most indubitable truths. 

John Stuart Mill, also, once expressed his 
doubt whether two and two might not make five 
in some other world. The mind that thus hesi- 
tates to admit the validity of its own funda- 
mental and necessary ideas must abandon all 
expectation of arriving at any positive knowl- 
edge. 

/ am sure that I am a responsible being and, 
as such, held to give account to conscience for 
my obedience to its commands, and take its 
praise or blame for my obedience or disobedience. 
From this responsibility I cannot successfully 
escape, any more than Pilate when he made a 
show of washing his hands in water, by putting 
the blame of my bad action on another. 

Neither does it serve that purpose to throw 
the blame back upon my ancestors as having 
transmitted to me bad dispositions, or upon my 
contemporaries as having surrounded me with 
corrupting associations. However they may 
also be to blame, I am sure that / am to blame 
for any evil I have done or been myself. All the 
theorists cannot make me believe that I am not 
a free agent, and, more than any or all others, 
the author of my own character. 



28 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

And 7 am sure that, wherever the praise or 
blame for my character may lie, my moral 
character determines my destmy. 

Well-being and happiness are certainly pos- 
sible, in the long run, only to the right kind of 
character. 

Degradation and misery are certain conse- 
quences of the wrong kind of character, whatever 
or whoever may have had a hand in producing 
it. 

When I consider what my position and pros- 
pects as a moral and responsible being are, I am 
quite sure that the answer turns, chiefly, on the 
judgment of conscience as to what my character 
has been and still is. 

I am sure that the determination of this matter 
requires a properly educated conscience, and all 
the light thrown upon the subject which can 
come from any source. 

I ami sure the Bible is the very best source, 
and having reflected upon its teachings, I am 
sure that I am the smfvl being it describes. 

There is enough remorse in my conscience for 
the evil I have done, said, thought and been, to 
make me wretched as long is I exist, unless in 
some way my conscience can be propitiated and 
its accusations hushed. 

There is enough depravity in my tastes and 



THE FACT OF SELF 29 

habits to balk any essential success in my efforts 
to be better, and, unless arrested, to> corrupt all 
remnants of a better nature still remaining in my 
soul. 

I am sure that I have not the power, in myself, 
either to pacify conscience or to banish depravity 
from my nature, and am therefore in a situation 
very greatly to appreciate a gospel of salvation 
from the guilt and power of sin. 

In this desperate emergency I am compelled to 
look away from myself for knowledge and power 
which I do not possess. 

Like a shipwrecked sailor I scan the horizon 
to find any sign of one coming to rescue me. 

Is there anything in me, or about me, which 
suggests the possibility of such a gospel as I 
need? 

At the very foundation of my intellectual be- 
ing lies that irresistible, intuitive conviction that 
every effect must have an adequate cause, and 
neither I nor any other human person can think 
the contrary. It is a truth that is self-evident, 
necessary and universal. 

I ami sure that I am an effect and must have 
a cause. 

I am a complex and highly organized effect, 
abounding in wonderful contrivances, remark- 
able adjustments and adaptations, extraordinary 



30 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

combinations, to which only an Infinite Mind 
with infinite power could have been equal. 

I am sure that I perceive God. 

With the Russian poet I say, " I am, O God, 
and surely Thou must be! " 

Or, as that noble 139th Psalm puts it, " I 
will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and won- 
derfully made; marvelous are Thy works, and 
that my soul knoweth right well." 

I have not only found God, but I can tell 
somewhat as to His character. 

He must be a holy being, or He would not 
have put this conscience into my soul which re- 
quires me to be holy also. 

He must be a kmd and loving being, or He 
would not have made me capable of these feel- 
ings, and surrounded me with so much to give 
me pleasure and joy. 

/ am sure that there is at least the possibility, 
nay, more, much more, the promise, in the 
very structure of my being, of an almighty 
Friend, who is able to do for me all that I need. 

/ am sure that the reverence of which I am 
capable belongs to Him, and that admiration 
and worship are the proper attitude of the crea- 
ture toward the Creator. 

I involuntarily turn toward Him with a prayer 
for enlightenment, help and salvation. 



THE FACT OF SELF 31 

I await in hope a fuller revelation of Him- 
self to me, such as I need and such as I am confi- 
dent He is able to make. 

In a word, my self -inspection has supplied me 
with numerous, momentous, essential facts, for 
which Christianity alone, supplies the comple- 
ment. 

/ have found that Christianity is made for me> 
and that I am made for Christianity. 



THE FACT OF A REVELATION 

Momentous fact, if it be a fact, compared 
with which most other facts of knowledge sink 
into insignificance. The Christian religion 
claims to have a revelation from God, in the 
Bible, of all the information desirable and neces- 
sary on the most important religious questions, 
for every member of the human race. Is that 
a real revelation, and is it a fact that a real 
revelation has been made? 

One cannot but hope that it is. If any one, 
and even a large number, should wish it not to 
be, and strive with enmity to destroy confidence 
in an actual revelation, that would be such a 
manifestation of human depravity as to strongly 
confirm what is said on that subject in the 
Bible. 

It would be like the joy of pirates who set 
their captives adrift in mid-ocean, without a 
chart or compass, to find their way as best they 
can to some friendly harbor. Or like that of 
savages who desert their prisoners in some great 
desert or primeval forest, out of which they 
have no means to extricate themselves. 



THE FACT OF REVELATION 33 

For what is desert, forest or ocean as an un- 
known and pathless extension, compared with 
the life we have to live and the death we have to 
die? And what must be the character of that 
heart that is willing to make our human course 
blinder, more confused and perplexing and more 
dangerous, less hopeful and happy than it might 
otherwise be? 

It is certainly a fact that we need a revelation 
of religious truth. 

It is a fact that God is the great Person of 
this universe " with whom we have to do," and 
to know his character, purposes and will is more 
important to us than all possible knowledge be- 
side. 

It is a fact that we are all involved in evils 
from which we know not how to escape, in 
calamities from which only God can deliver us ; 
but as to whether he will deliver us we are all 
naturally ignorant. 

It is a fact that all the wisdom of this world, 
independently of the Bible, has never been able 
to answer the questions of the soul regarding 
God, life, death and immortality. 

It is a fact that no religion in the world ex- 
cept the Christian possesses anything worthy 
to be considered a revelation. 

The most that can be made of the so-called 



34 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

" sacred books " of the heathen, or of the con- 
clusions of philosophers, ancient or modern, is, 
that they are guesses, though sometimes the 
guesses of very able minds, at the truths of re- 
ligion. They show how little man knows, or 
can know, of himself, about the most important 
matters which concern him. 

As for all modern pretensions to having re- 
ceived divine revelations, such as Swedenborg's, 
the Mormons', Spiritism's, it is sufficient to say 
that there is nothing in these pretended revela- 
tions which is not attributable to purely human 
sources, and that they are generally regarded 
as impositions upon particularly credulous 
minds. 

It is a fact most impressive that for any book 
to gain wide reputation as a divine book, as the 
" Word of God," is well-nigh impossible. 

Yet it is a fact, indisputable, that this reputa- 
tion, to all other books impossible, has been 
achieved and maintained for thousands of years 
by the Christian Bible. The Old Testament 
enjoyed that reputation before the Christian 
era, and the Old and New together have held 
that high place for the almost 2000 years since 
that era began. 

It is a fact that the Bible must possess the 
very highest qualities, to have obtained and pre- 



THE FACT OF REVELATION 35 

served this reputation down to the present time 
and to be venerated and loved as the Word of 
God by many millions of many races, and es- 
pecially by those who must be regarded as the 
most intelligent, virtuous and competent judges 
of what a divine book ought to be. 

It is a fact that the Bible is the greatest liter- 
ary work in the world. It stands in a class by 
itself, all others being far below it. 

It is a fact that although the Old Testament 
consists of 39 books, by perhaps nearly thirty 
human authors, and the New Testament con- 
sists of 27 books, by ten human authors, there 
is a unity of meaning and purpose and style 
running through all, which makes them seem like 
one book ; and it is consistent with the idea that 
the divine mind planned and ruled over the com- 
position of all the p&rts. 

It is a fact strongly supporting this idea that 
no book which has ever been written, not even 
any which the Bible itself has suggested and in- 
spired, would be for a moment regarded as 
worthy to be bound up with the books of the 
Bible as an additional part. 

It is a fact that the Bible is the best book in 
the world. It deserves to be called the Holy 
Bible. Its elevating, and ennobling influence 
upon individuals and nations and races is a fact, 



36 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

the evidence of which is abundant and familiar. 
To introduce the Bible into human society, even 
in that society's lowest and most degraded con- 
ditions, is to raise it rapidly towards the high- 
est known standards, even the standards of the 
Bible itself, than which there is nothing higher. 

It is a fact that the Bible is a book for all 
time, having in it that which has interested, in- 
structed, comforted and elevated all past ages ; 
and so far from being exhausted is it at the pres- 
ent time that it is more read, studied, discussed, 
objected to by enemies, and loved, defended, and 
extolled by its friends, than ever before. There 
is not the slightest probability that it will not 
continue to be the greatest book in the world as 
long as the human race shall last. 

It is a fact that while, like Nature, the Bible 
contains many things the purpose and value of 
which have never yet been clearly perceived, it 
also, like Nature, contains many things so great, 
noble and excellent for us that they can be at- 
tributed only to their divine Author. For ex- 
ample, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's 
Prayer, and the portrait of Jesus, are so far 
above all human inventions that they must be 
considered divine. 

It is a fact that the Bible contains predictions 
of future events, the fulfillment of which proves 



THE FACT OF REVELATION 37 

them to have been made by divine knowledge. 
Thus the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which was 
certainly written centuries before the coming of 
Christ, is such a vivid and detailed description 
of the closing events of his life as must have is- 
sued from a mind to which the future is as evi- 
dent as the past. 

It is a fact that the conception of Salvation 
which is peculiar to the Scriptures, as that of a 
fallen and lost race beyond all possibility of 
self-deliverance, to be rescued by God through 
Incarnation, Atonement, Regeneration, Justifi- 
cation, Sanctification and Resurrection, is so for- 
eign to human thought and so impossible of hu- 
man invention that it can have come to us only 
from God himself. 

That this wonderful plan, which could have 
originated only with God, and which, in all its 
parts, God alone could execute, is the great sub- 
ject of the Bible and may be found everywhere 
in it, makes the book eminently worthy to be a 
divine book, and separates it immeasurably from 
all other so-called " sacred books." 

It is a fact that all attempts, of which there 
have been many, to discredit the Bible have 
proved futile up to this time. It is an anvil 
which has worn out many hammers. If we may 
judge the future by the past, the Bible will tri- 



38 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

umph over all assaults which shall or can be 
made upon it. 

It is a fact that no individual, race or nation 
has anything to gain by destroying faith in the 
Bible, but everything to lose. Peace of mind, 
comfort in sorrow, strength against temptation, 
kindness and justice between man and man, hope 
in death, are all promoted and kept alive by such 
faith, and are all in danger of perishing by its 
destruction. For the world to lose its Bible 
would be, apparently, to have the dark night of 
atheism and anarchy settle down upon mankind. 
From that conclusion shall not every one of us 
pray, " Good Lord, deliver us ! " 



VI 

THE FACT OF JESUS CHRIST 

It is a fact that for now nearly 2000 years 
Jesus Christ has been the most important re- 
ligious figure of the world's knowledge. 

It is a fact that for all that time he has been 
regarded as the world's greatest religious teacher 
and the world's greatest man. 

It is a fact that he has been worshipped as 
God and trusted in as Saviour by a constantly 
increasing number, of many nations and races, 
and that there were never so many who wor- 
shipped and trusted in him as now. 

It is a fact that those who so' regard him are 
not the savage, ignorant, superstitious and least 
enlightened peoples, but those whose conceptions 
of God are the highest which men have ever en- 
tertained, even those found in the Bible, of an 
infinite, eternal, all- wise, almighty, just, holy 
and loving being. 

It is a fact that this beautiful and sublime 
conception is itself, largely, the result of the 
study of the character of Christ himself, as set 
forth in the Holy Scriptures, and that, for God 
to be as great and good as Jesus Christ, is an 

39 



40 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

idea which satisfies our minds, hearts and con- 
sciences, and meets our greatest needs and lofti- 
est aspirations. 

It is a fact that we get our knowledge of 
Jesus Christ not from any mere human biog- 
raphy or history, but from that greatest and 
best book in the world, which contains so much 
which could not have come from purely human 
sources, and is so far above all other literature 
that we are compelled to regard God as its only 
sufficient Author. 

It is a fact that the four Gospels from which, 
principally, we derive our knowledge, while con- 
taining independent and peculiar accounts of 
this great Person, yet so wonderfully agree in 
their harmonious portraiture of his unique char- 
acter, as is possible only from actual and inti- 
mate acquaintance with him, supplemented and 
completed by a divine influence which left noth- 
ing lacking in their representations or needing 
correction. 

It is a fact that it is now known that the 
epistles of Paul were written, and in circulation, 
within only twenty-five years of the death of 
Christ; that these letters contain the essential 
facts of his history, which was therefore soon 
and widely known, as important and real facts 
are likely to be. 



THE FACT OF JESUS CHRIST 41 

It is a fact that the personal claims of Jesus, 
recorded in the Gospels, to equality with the 
Father as the Son of God, are so clear and posi- 
tive that the worship of Him as divine must be 
considered to have been desired and intended by 
Him. 

It is a fact that His life and death were in 
the highest degree worthy of a God who should 
become man for the salvation of the world. 

It is a fact that many things which Jesus said 
about himself, and which would surprise and dis- 
gust us if said by any other, seem entirely fitting 
and proper, because so* completely in harmony 
with his exalted character. 

It is a fact that the discourses, parables, 
promises, exhortations and denunciations by 
Jesus, recorded in the gospels, are of a quality 
such as we should expect from, a divine-human 
person. No human literary genius ever com- 
posed a prayer appropriate to such a person, 
but the 17th chapter of John contains such a 
prayer. To suppose that John invented it is 
to rate him far above the most stupendous liter- 
ary genius the world has ever known. His task 
was far easier: he had only to record what he 
must have heard Jesus say. 

It is a fact that, in the judgment of those who 
are the most scrupulous regarding right and 



42 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

wrong, Jesus is entirely without faults. Many 
who hesitate to pronounce as to his divine na- 
ture yet grant, and insist upon, his sinlessness. 
And he, though the keenest discerner and great- 
est teacher of moral distinctions, had no con- 
sciousness of guilt, and never asked for for- 
giveness. He is the one person of the human 
race of whom such perfection can be believed. 

It is a fact that this moral perfection is not 
less wonderful than any of the miracles attri- 
buted to Jesus, and is itself a miracle which pro- 
claims him all that he has been thought to be. 

It is a fact that the miracles which he is said 
to have performed, and the supernatural manner 
of his coming and his going, are in perfect har- 
mony with his claims and character as the Son 
of God, and exactly what we ought to expect if 
God should become incarnate. 

It is a fact that the perception of his divinity 
by his apostles was the very rock on which he 
meant to build his church, and that up to the 
present time his prediction that the gates of 
Hades should not prevail against it has been ful- 
filled. 

It is a fact that in all situations in which 
Jesus is described, and in all his relations to per- 
sons and classes, the propriety, dignity and 
beauty of his behavior never falls short of what 



THE FACT OF JESUS CHRIST 43 

we might expect of " God manifest in the flesh.' 5 

It is a fact that the pathos, moral beauty and 
majesty of Christ's death, and the solemn and 
profound impression made by it, are all in en- 
tire harmony with its significance as a voluntary 
sacrifice for human sin, and that the general 
judgment endorses the famous saying of the 
French infidel, Rousseau, " Jesus Christ died 
like a god." 

It is a fact that God himself could do nothing 
more or better than to sacrifice Himself to atone 
for the sins of His guilty creatures, and that 
to deny that He did this, in the person of Jesus, 
is to rob Him of his greatest glory, and to make 
Him less than Jesus himself. 

It is a fact that the resurrection of Christ is 
so well attested that we can be surer of nothing 
than of that. So much has happened which 
could not otherwise have happened, that it must 
have occurred. 

It is a fact that prophecy and history, the 
past, present and the future, have their only 
explanation, and indeed their only possibility, 
in the fact of Jesus Christ. 

It is a fact that as Christ's birth is the cen- 
tral point of all history, all events being dated 
according to their occurrence either before or 
since that birth, so it was the crisis and turning 



44 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

point of the world's history, when, from having 
sunk to the lowest depths of degredation and 
misery, mankind began to rise socially, morally 
and religiously. 

It is a fact that the only intelligible concep- 
tion of the meaning of human existence, the pur- 
pose for which man is designed, and the plan by 
which that purpose is to be effected, are fur- 
nished by Jesus Christ, and by him alone. 

It is a fact that the only substantial founda- 
tion of which man has ever heard for a reason- 
able hope of becoming ultimately perfect and 
eternally happy, is that supplied by the promises 
and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is a fact that the only Gospel which has 
ever proved effectual in producing true repent- 
ance for sin and turning the heart toward God 
in loving trust and submission is the gospel of 
a Crucified Saviour, whose loving self-sacrifice 
is the expression, at once, of divine justice and 
divine love, and the highest proof man can have 
of his own essential dignity and worth. 



VII 

THE FACT OF THE CHURCH 

It is a fact that the greatest and most power- 
ful religious institution which the world has 
ever seen, having for its object the betterment 
of the race and the salvation of the soul, is the 
Christian Church. 

It is a fact that it sprang into existence in a 
single day, only fifty days after the crucifixion 
of Christ, and in the very city where he had been 
crucified, and at the close of that day numbered 
more than three thousand persons. 

It is a fact that on that very day it was sub- 
stantially the same that it is now ; with the same 
conditions of membership, the same doctrines, 
principles, methods, aims and hopes which have 
characterized it from that time to this. 

It is a fact that the disciples of Jesus had 
been plunged into such dejection and apathy, 
by the apparently horrible and hopeless calamity 
of his shameful death, that nothing less than his 
resurrection can account for the wonderful vigor 
and confidence with which the Church began. 

It is a fact that the wonderful descent of the 
Holy Spirit, with all its attendant miracles, in 
45 



46 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

the very manner described in the second chapter 
of Acts, must be added to the Resurrection in 
order to furnish an adequate cause for the sud- 
den birth of the Church on the Day of Pentecost. 

It is a fact that from this time onwards the 
apostles and early disciples evinced no slightest 
doubt or hesitation, and were ready, if need be, 
to seal their testimony with their blood. 

It is a fact that within the first year the gos- 
pel was carried, and the Church extended, 
through all parts of Palestine and into neigh- 
boring regions; that the Church at Jerusalem 
had grown to 10,000 or more; and that Saul of 
Tarsus, the greatest mind of that or any suc- 
ceeding age with the single exception of Jesus 
Christ, and at first the bitterest and crudest 
enemy of Christianity, had been converted and 
had become its most ardent friend and its great- 
est apostle. 1 

It is a fact that the subsequent triumphs of 
the Christian religion over the inveterate hos- 
tility of Judaism and the apparently overwhelm- 
ing power of Paganism can be explained only 
by its inherent excellence and by the super- 
natural co-operation of God. 

It is a fact that the survival of the Church 

i Dr. Behrends' Yale Address. See Bible Student and 
Teacher, April, 1909, p. 241. 



THE FACT OF THE CHURCH 47 

through the Dark Ages, and during the vicissi- 
tudes of all the centuries since its origin, until 
at the present time its magnitude and influence 
are greater than ever before, is a manifestation 
of providential care and control, than which 
there could be none more convincing. 

It is a fact that the doctrines of Christianity 
are so opposed to the natural conceptions of 
mankind, its motives are so contrary to human 
inclination, and the life it proposes and insists 
upon so distasteful to human nature, that noth- 
ing less than a new spiritual birth, as the regen- 
erating work of God's Holy Spirit, can account 
for either the beginning of the Church or its 
continuance from generation to generation. 

It is a fact that the corruptions of the Church 
at various times and in many countries, the de- 
cline of its piety, the perversion of its doctrines, 
the hypocrisy and priestcraft of those who have 
acted in its name, only render more wonderful 
the fact of its continued existence and the degree 
of the purity which it has been able to maintain. 
Its greatest enemies have been its false friends ; 
its worst foes have not been without but within ; 
a false church has been the most formidable rival 
of the true church ; and the infidels from whom 
it has had most to fear are the infidels who have 
masked as Christian preachers and teachers in 



48 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

its pulpits and press and schools. All these se- 
cret foes it has had in addition to all the avowed 
enmity of all the powers of worldly evil, and yet 
it lives on, undestroyed and indestructible. 
This is the great fact of history, which Bunyan 
represented by a fire on which water was continu- 
ally thrown to extinguish it, but which was kept 
alive by oil secretly poured on from behind. 

It is a fact that the ordinances of Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper, the observance of which can 
be traced through nineteen centuries to the very 
beginning of the Christian Era, are a historical 
monument of the origin and nature of Christian- 
ity, which cannot be successfully overthrown. 

It is a fact that Christianity was the ark in 
which the treasures of learning, civilization and 
true religion were borne to us through that 
flood of ignorance, superstition and barbarism 
which prevailed in so many countries during 
many centuries of our era. 

It is a fact that for the preservation of the 
Bible in the world, the maintenance of spiritual 
worship, the success of great moral reforms, 
and the practice and spread of humaneness, we 
are now, as we have always been, dependent 
chiefly upon the Church of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

It is a fact that the great missionary organi- 



THE FACT OF THE CHURCH 49 

zations of the Church, which have been endeavor- 
ing for a hundred years to evangelize the nations 
of the earth, and which are continually en- 
larging their operations upon a more and more 
prodigious scale, have done and are doing more 
than all other agencies for the progress of the 
human race. The philanthropy, the unselfish- 
ness and the heroism of Missions are a continu- 
ally recurring demonstration that Christianity 
is from God. 

It is a fact that at the present time, after all 
the experiments of thousands of years, by all the 
races, nations, governments, philosophies, sci- 
ences, arts and organizations, to* raise the world 
to a higher level, there is nothing in sight which 
gives such brilliant promise of success as the 
Christian Church. Its wonderful achievements 
in the past, its world-wide enterprise and ag- 
gressiveness at the present, and its evidence of 
alliance with the Ruler of the Universe and the 
Savior of men, give it a prestige which can be 
found nowhere else, and afford the happiest 
augury of its future complete triumph. The 
fortunes of mankind are in the hands of the 
Church of Jesus Christ, as they are m no other 
keeping whatsoever. 



VIII 

THE FACT OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI- 
ENCE 

It is a fact that a peculiar, unique and blessed 
experience is common to all who truly believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and really accept him 
as their Lord and Savior. 

It is a fact that in these persons the mind is 
so illuminated, and the understanding so quick- 
ened and clarified, as to enable them to perceive 
the facts of self and of God, and the truths of 
Revelation, with a clearness and certainty which 
produce the greatest possible assurance of their 
trustworthiness. 

It is a fact that there is a change of disposi- 
tion and of tastes in such persons which amounts 
to a revolution, and that they love what they 
formerly were indifferent to or hated, and hate 
what they formerly tolerated or loved. 

It is a fact that in these persons the will is 
now exercised to make entirely opposite choices 
to those which it formerly made, and that the 
motives which it allows to influence it are mo- 
tives which formerly had for it no power. 

50 



THE FACT OF EXPERIENCE 51 

It is a fact that to those who experience this 
change of mind, heart and will, the worship of 
the God revealed in the Bible ceases to be a dis- 
tasteful and mechanical performance of duty, 
and becomes a delightful contemplation and 
adoration of the Being most honored and loved. 

It is a fact that at the same time, and by the 
same means, the fellow men of the convert to 
Christianity are no longer regarded with in- 
difference, aversion or hate, but with a truly un- 
selfish affection and a desire to contribute to 
their happiness and ensure their salvation. 

It is a fact that while these feelings are ex- 
ercised toward all men without distinction of 
race, color or nation, the Christian feels a pe- 
culiarly strong and tender affection for other 
Christians, such as is fitting toward the spiritual 
children of a common heavenly Father. 

It is a fact that these peculiar experiences and 
this remarkable revolution of character may be 
often, and even quite generally, traced to re- 
flection upon some passage or passages of the 
Bible which have served, like spiritual seed, to 
cause the uprising of a new spiritual life. 

It is a fact that the fostering of this new 
spiritual life, and the cultivation of it to higher 
grades of excellence, is the result of continued 



52 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

acquaintance with the Bible, with confidence in 
its truth, acceptance of its teachings and sub- 
mission to its guidance. 

It is a fact that this unique Christian experi- 
ence is exactly what the Bible promises and de- 
scribes, and attributes to the supernatural 
agency of the Spirit of God. 

It is a fact that the conviction of sin and the 
assurance of forgiveness are often, and most 
frequently, the results of the contemplation of 
the death of Christ, as described in the Gospels, 
and faith that, by that death, atonement was 
made to the divine justice, and pardon to guilty 
but penitent sinners rendered possible. 

It is a fact that for these reasons, and the 
recognized inseparable and causal connection of 
the Bible with this precious Christian experience, 
it becomes to the Christian the Book of books, 
and proves its divine authorship beyond doubt 
or question. 

It is a fact that because, m the Church, the 
Christian finds associates who share and confirm 
his own blessed experience and stimulate him to 
cherish and increase it, supplying, at the same 
time, the means of grace by which such increase 
is furthered, his love for the Church and his 
confidence that, like the Bible, it is divinely 



THE FACT OF EXPERIENCE 53 

originated and continued, become fixed and in- 
destructible. 

It is a fact that Prayer, in the truest sense, 
begins and is maintained as an indispensable part 
of the Christian life; and that the longer it is 
continued, and the firmer the habit becomes, the 
stronger is the conviction that God really meets 
and answers the praying spirit. 

It is a fact that by this Christian experience 
life is ennobled, sweetened and made in every way 
worthier. It is directed to superior aims, occu- 
pied with higher thoughts, made stronger 
against temptation, more patient in trials, more 
resolute against difficulties, more enduring un- 
der adversity. In the humblest as well as the 
highest vocation, life becomes worth the living. 
The joys of Christian experience make all other 
joys seem small and inconsiderable. 

It is a fact of Christian experience that death 
itself is robbed of its terrors, and changed from 
the greatest of misfortunes into the greatest of 
blessings. The dying Christian is often so con- 
scious of supernatural grace supporting his 
weakness, removing his fears, and brightening 
his future, that the hour of his departure be- 
comes to him an hour of triumphant entry into 
celestial gates. Innumerable instances of such 



54 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

departures confirm the conviction that the Lord 
Jesus always fulfills his promise to come again 
and receive his disciples unto himself. 

It is a fact that the world owes to Christian 
experience its greatest advantages and blessings, 
since it has been those who have possessed it who 
have been the world's greatest benefactors. As 
ministers, missionaries, philanthropists, states- 
men and doers of good works generally, they 
have taken the leading part in the promotion of 
education, religion, freedom and civilization. 

It is a fact that the reality, power and value of 
this experience are attested by too many wit- 
nesses and proved by too many evidences, to be 
reasonably disputed. The searcher after re- 
ligious truth must give it a large place in his 
investigations, if he wishes to be truly scientific. 
That there are many who have never had this 
experience cannot be urged against it, unless 
it can be shown that they have supplied all con- 
ditions on which it is promised. Nor can the un- 
worthy and injurious results of a corrupted and 
paganized Christianity be used to depreciate and 
disparage the experience of the actual followers 
of Jesus Christ. For them, all that has been 
claimed must be admitted in all its reality and 
power. 



IX 

THE FACT OF NATURE 

It is a fact that the natural universe, including 
the human race, is a revelation of God, with 
which all other revelations must necessarily har- 
monize. 

It is a fact that the descriptions of Nature in 
the Bible are the most beautiful, sublime and 
affecting to be found in all literature. 

It is a fact that no conflict between the Bible 
and Science has ever been proved, although many 
attempts to prove such a conflict have been made. 

It is a fact that each of several so-called sci- 
ences, at its first appearance, has been supposed 
by some to be capable of being used to convict 
the Bible of error; but each in its turn, as its 
facts came to be more fully and correctly ap- 
prehended, became a witness for the truth of the 
Sacred Scriptures. 

It is a fact that some of the truths of the 
natural sciences, which have only recently been 
discovered through investigation, were antici- 
pated by the writers of the books of the Bible, 
showing that they were inspired by Him who 
knew all things from the beginning. 
55 



56 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

It is a fact that these writers were wonderfully 
preserved from incorporating in their works the 
false ideas of Nature which were current in their 
times, so that the Bible contrasts so completely 
with other so-called sacred books as to show 
that it alone came from God. 

It is a fact that statements of the Bible re- 
lating to Natural History, which scientists have 
for a long time confidently disputed, have re- 
cently been proved true, showing that the charge 
of error was based, not upon knowledge, but 
upon ignorance. 

It is a fact that the Christian conception of 
God is based upon the revelation of Him in Na- 
ture, and includes and harmonizes with all that 
we know of Him from his natural works. 

It is a fact that the Christian conception of 
man is the only one which makes an adequate ac- 
count of his actualities and his possibilities, of 
his worst and his best, of what he is and what he 
may be. 

It is a fact that human nature is fallen and de- 
praved, with a tendency to gravitate toward 
lower depths of sin and guilt, and that in spite 
of remnants of a better nature and recurrent im- 
pulses to retrieve itself, it has no power to lift 
itself to a permanently higher level and achieve 
a thoroughly faultless character. 



THE FACT OF NATURE 57 

It is a fact that the most intelligible idea of 
the plan and purpose of the natural world, an 
idea consistent with all the facts, is that it is 
the appropriate home of a sinful race, whom 
God would reform, educate and save. As such 
it is fitted up, not with the ideal appointments 
which a holy race would deserve and enjoy, but 
with the furniture which sinners, not incapable 
of salvation, need and may be benefited by. 

It is a fact that the human race are undergo- 
ing a moral and evangelical probation, the re- 
sult of which appears to be the settlement of 
their final destiny. 

It is a fact that for this purpose God has re- 
vealed himself to man in many ways, that better 
acquaintance with our Maker may incline us to 
repentance, reconciliation and entire concord. 

It is a fact that Nature holds a mirror up to 
Man in which he sees the reflection of his own 
vices in the lower races of wild and noxious ani- 
mals with which he has to share his dwelling 
place, so that he recognizes the phases of de- 
praved human character as similar to the nature 
of bears, foxes, snakes, wolves and other dreaded 
wild beasts. 

It is a fact, too, that the great Teacher, Jesus, 
used many natural objects as symbols of spirit- 
ual facts, thereby indicating that the primary 



58 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

purpose of these objects was the religious edu- 
cation and salvation of men. 

It is a fact that Jesus made use of Nature to 
show himself to be the incarnate God, and by 
such miracles as the multiplication of the loaves 
and fishes, the healing of incurable diseases, the 
stilling of the tempest, and the raising of the 
dead to life, proved himself to be the Creator 
and Ruler of the Universe and the sufficient 
Saviour of his people. 

It is a fact that the human conscience, by its 
recognition of the distinction between right and 
wrong, and the approval it renders for right and 
the remorse it inflicts for wrong, reveals the 
character and judgment of its Maker and his 
moral government over mankind. 

It is a fact that in addition to conscience, 
there is a system of rewards and punishments 
under God's moral government, according to 
which the greatest benefits follow welldoing and 
the greatest penalties follow evildoing. 

It is a fact that the disposition to forgive of- 
fences, when the offenders appear truly penitent, 
is a characteristic of the noblest natures, and 
may therefore be expected of God. 

It is a fact that, under all forms of human 
government, the disposition to pardon has to 
be exercised with great caution, lest the escape 



THE FACT OF NATURE 59 

of the pardoned from just punishment encourage 
evildoers to expect to be able to break law with 
impunity. 

It is a fact that in all true sorrow for sin there 
is a desire to atone in some way for the evil done, 
that law may be honored and the injury to others 
repaired. 

It is a fact that those who honestly endeavor 
to attain a high degree of moral excellence 
realize keenly the depravity of their own natures 
and the need of a change of heart, such as Jesus 
said must take place before entrance into the 
kingdom of Heaven. 

It is a fact that in the natural world every 
kingdom has the power to lift the kingdom be- 
low it to its own level, although no kingdom has 
the power to rise above itself. Thus the vegeta- 
ble kingdom takes the mineral kingdom' and 
makes it a part of its own life, and the animal 
kingdom does the same for the vegetable king- 
dom. Unnumbered insects deposit their eggs 
in the stems or leaves of plants, whereupon the 
plant abandons its normal course and builds a 
wonderful dwelling for its tenents. In like man- 
ner, man lifts all kingdoms below him to other 
and higher uses than they would serve of them- 
selves. So that being " born from above " is a 
general law of Nature, as well as the method of 



60 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

salvation by which the Holy Spirit does for a de- 
praved sinner what he could not do for himself. 

It is a fact that the remarkable influence which 
some men exert upon others, by which character 
is changed and careers are revolutionized, affords 
strong corroboration of the doctrine that the 
Holy Spirit of God is able to exert an influence 
over the mind and heart., which is a virtual re- 
creation and makes the person a new creature in 
Christ Jesus. 

It is a fact that the Fatherly love of God for 
his human offspring, which Jesus so beautifully 
taught, is testified to by numberless adjustments 
of Nature and natural processes, which tend to 
give pleasure, gratification, comfort, health 
and happiness; while even pain, sickness, sorrow 
and death are often seen to work out beneficent 
results, which show kindness and good will to be 
the characteristics of the Creator. 

It is a fact that the liberty of choice to which 
the Gospel addresses itself, the abuse of which is 
the source of all moral evil, is the indispensable 
condition of all really virtuous character and of 
all perfect happiness ; it was, therefore, the 
crowning gift with which God originally en- 
dowed human nature. 

It is a fact that that self-sacrifice of which 
even fallen human nature is capable, which is 



THE FACT OF NATURE 61 

continually demanded in every relation in life 
and which is cheerfully rendered by heroic souls, 
would lead us to expect that the God who made, 
loves and pities this lost race, would sacrifice 
himself for our salvation, in the very manner de- 
scribed in the gospels. 

It is a fact that the self-sacrifice of another 
for its sake is the most powerful means of affect- 
ing a base mind, inducing a desire for reform 
and a purpose to be better ; so that the death of 
Christ for us sinners is entirely in accord with 
all that we can understand of the philosophy of 
salvation. 

It is a fact that the desire for a future life, 
and the general expectation of such a life, which 
have prevailed in all lands and ages, are exactly 
what we should expect in view of the fuller reve- 
lation of life and immortality made by our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

It is a fact that the resurrection of the body 
in a form' at once identical with the old, but new 
and far more glorious, is typified by Nature in 
many ways and numberless instances. The res- 
urrection of the grain of wheat in the new body 
which God gives it, which, though so different 
and so much greater and more beautiful, is yet 
identical with the seed sown, is Paul's chosen 
illustration, in the fifteenth chapter of First 



62 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

Corinthians. The butterfly, which reaches its 
gorgeous climax by passing from the caterpillar 
through the crysalis, is only the most splendid 
representative of the whole insect world, which 
seems designed to teach the Resurrection. 



DISPUTED FACTS NOW PROVED 

That Moses wrote the books attributed to him 
has been, and still is, widely denied, on the 
ground that the art of writing was unknown as 
early as 1500 B. C. But whole libraries of a 
far earlier date have been unearthed in Assyria 
and Egypt, containing works on grammar, 
geography, natural history, theology, astrology 
and history. The age of Abraham, who lived 
at least five hundred years before, was an age of 
culture. At Tel-el-Amarna, in Egypt, tablets 
have been found containing business records, and 
letters from the high officials of Palestine, dis- 
closing the very state of affairs described by the 
book of Joshua. 1 

The fact that light was created before the sun, 
as stated in the first chapter of Genesis, was long 
ridiculed, but is now generally admitted by men 
of science. 

That vegetation appeared before animal life 
was also stoutly denied, but is now abundantly 

i Prof. Sayce, " The Higher Criticism and the Monu- 
ments," p. 51. 

63 



64 THE FACTS OP FAITH 

proved by the beds of graphite, which consist 
of vegetable remains. 

The order of events given by the creation- 
chapter has long been fiercely contested, but it 
is now established that there is no conflict be- 
tween the Scripture record and that of geology. 1 

That the Sabbath was primeval has been dis- 
puted, and its origin assigned to the institutions 
of the Hebrew people. But it is now known 
that it was observed in the most ancient times, 
and that it had then the sweet name — " a day of 
rest for the heart. 9 ' 2 

The story of the deluge of Noah, recorded in 
Genesis, and referred to by Christ as an actual 
event, was long considered the " deluge myth," 
and is still so styled by those who do not seem 
to have heard of or kept pace with, the progress 
of the science of geology. It is now fully es- 
tablished that, since man appeared upon the 
earth, there was a tremendous flood, which sud- 
denly swept him and the races of animals then 
living, from existence. It is now affirmed by 
the ablest geologists that " there is no other great 
physical catastrophe which is confirmed by so 

i " New Biblical Guide," Vol. I, p. 40. 
2 " Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament," 
Vol. I, p. 19. 



FACTS NOW PROVED 65 

imposing an array of witnesses and testimon- 
ials." * 

The umty of mankind, as descended in all its 
branches from the family of Noah, is a fact, 
the knowledge of which, we owe entirely to the 
Bible. It has, however, been disputed not only 
by infidels like Voltaire, who said that " no one 
who was not blind could doubt that Whites and 
Negroes are of different races," but also by 
statesmen like Calhoun and by anthropologists 
of wide reputation. But great naturalists, such 
as Buff on and Linnaeus, have always maintained 
that the teaching of Scripture is correct; and 
finally, after the most searching and even micro- 
scopical study of race differences, Pritchard de- 
clares, in his " Researches into the Physical His- 
tory of Mankind," that Science refuses to be 
responsible for the objections made in her name. 
The tenth chapter of Genesis, which, to the 
casual reader, is an uninteresting list of names 
and places, is the most important and trust- 
worthy document which ethnologists possess, 
from which they obtain their knowledge of the 
ancient nations and places. 2 

The tower of Babel has been declared unhis- 

i Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1907, p. 544. 
2 « New Biblical Guide," Vol. I, p. 414. 



66 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

torical, but it has been identified with the tower 
of Borsippa, a mountain-like structure a few 
miles from the ruins of the ancient city of Baby- 
lon. Its preservation through so many centur- 
ies is ascribed to the very well made bricks of 
which it is built, a fact which is particularly 
mentioned in the account in Genesis xi, 13. 

The history of Abraham has been refused cre- 
dence on the ground that everything about him 
is prehistoric, and therefore utterly uncertain, 
and if there ever was such a man he must have 
been a savage. But the city in which he dwelt 
before God called him, Ur of the Chaldees, has 
been identified, and its ruins " reveal that it was, 
in Abraham's time, a center of learning and of 
civilization, of the sciences and the arts, a place 
of wealth and luxury." x One of the ablest of 
living Assyriologists, Professor Clay, of the 
University of Pennsylvania, has said that the 
time of Abraham " was only about midway in 
the written history of man." 

The beautiful story of Joseph, whose charac- 
ter and history are so remarkably like that of 
our Redeemer, has been assailed as unhistorical, 
and many of its details have been said to be 
inconsistent with the age and the country in 

i " New Biblical Guide," Vol. II, p. 87. 



FACTS NOW PROVED 67 

which they are placed. But investigation and 
discovery have proved the story to be in exact 
and minute harmony with the Syria and Egypt 
of that time. The very Pharaoh who made 
Joseph his prime minister has been identified as 
Apophis II, one of the Shepherd Kings, a 
foreign dynasty, of a race akin to the Hebrews, 
who conquered and ruled Egypt for centuries. 
It has been learned from a papyrus, now in the 
British Museum, that this Pharaoh became the 
worshipper of one God, 1 a fact which is ex- 
plained by the Scripture history of the rescue 
of Egypt from destruction by famine through 
the instrumentality of a servant of Jehovah. 

The authorship of the five books purporting 
to have been written by Moses has been denied 
to him and assigned to Ezra, who lived a thou- 
sand years later in Persia and Babylon. In 
that case these books would contain unmistak- 
able marks of their origin in Persian and Baby- 
lonian words, such as would be familiar to 
Ezra. On the contrary they contain many 
Egyptian words, some of them so ancient as to 
have lost their meaning by Ezra's time, and 
only now coming to be understood through dis- 
coveries by Egyptologists. Almost every cir- 

iM. Mariettas " Histoire Ancienne," p. 167. 



68 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

cumstance of the Scriptural history of the 
Israelites in Egypt has been found to agree 
with the memorials of ancient Egypt. The op- 
pression which they suffered, which Exodus at- 
tributes to the fact that " another king arose 
who knew not Joseph," is explained by the re- 
covery of sovereignty by an Egyptian dynasty, 
which expelled the Shepherd Kings. The very 
buildings erected by the Israelites during their 
bondage have been found, showing bricks at 
first with straw, and then with " stubble," and 
finally without straw or stubble, the supply hav- 
ing been exhausted. 

The Pharoah of the oppression has been 
identified, and the great calamities inflicted upon 
the nation by the ten plagues and the burial of 
Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea, are attested by 
the fact that this Pharaoh had no son to suc- 
ceed him, and Egypt lapsed into a condition of 
feebleness and unimportance, which lasted for 
many years. 1 

The Mosaic code has been declared to have 
been impossible on account of the rudeness of 
the age in which it purports to have been made, 
but the code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, 
has been found, and may be seen in the British 
Museum, a code which antedates the Mosaic law 

i Speaker's "Commentary," Vol. I, p. 4*56. 



FACTS NOW PROVED 69 

by 500 years, being, in some respects, still more 
elaborate. 1 

The wwndermgs of the Israelites in the Wil- 
derness have been denied to be historical, and 
called the invention of Ezra, or some other priest 
who lived a thousand years later in some other 
land. But the country has been carefully sur- 
veyed, the record of the journey in the books 
of Moses compared with the topography and 
found to fit it, step by step, station after sta- 
tion, until the surveyors felt no doubt that " the 
Pentateuch was written by one who had taken 
part in the events which he describes." 2 

The crossing of the Jordan by Joshua and 
the Israelites, related in the third chapter of the 
Book of Joshua, has been disputed on the ground 
that no such overflow of the river at the 
time (April) when the crossing is said to have 
taken place could possibly occur. It has been 
said that at that time the winter rains have long 
since ceased, and the tributaries of the Jordan 
are dried up. Moreover, the account says that 
the overflow took place at the " time of har- 
vest," which is later than April, so that the time 
mentioned seems too late for a flood and too 
early for the harvest. But Dr. Thompson, 

i Bible Student and Teacher, July, 1907, p. 46. 
2 « New Biblical Guide," Vol. Ill, p. 363. 



70 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

long a missionary in Palestine, confirms the 
Scripture. He says that the Jordan is not de- 
pendent upon tributaries, but is fed by great 
fountains, which become swollen by the melting 
snows on Hermon and Lebanon, and the flood 
reaches the neighborhood of the crossing by the 
middle of March, and continues for several 
months. As for the harvest, that takes place in 
the same locality at this early date, because the 
Jordan Valley is thirteen hundred feet below sea 
level and has a tropical climate. 1 Thus are the 
speculations of skeptical critics shown to be 
baseless, and the history found to agree with 
the facts of the locality. 

It has been denied that the city of Jerusalem 
bore that name until the time of David, and its 
occurrence in the account of the Conquest of 
Canaan by Joshua proves, it has been said, that 
that account was wiitten long after the time of 
Joshua. But among the finds at Tel-el- Amarna, 
in Egypt, is a letter from the king of Jerusa- 
lem, and it is now evident that the name is 
Babylonian and came into Palestine " when 
Babylonian writing and culture first penetrated 
to the west." 2 

The history of the period of David and 

i"The Land and the Book," Vol. II, p. 454. 
2 " New Biblical Guide," Vol. IV, p. 397. 



FACTS NOW PROVED 71 

Solomon, in the books of Samuel, Kings and 
Chronicles, has been declared to be unreliable, 
as the compositions of writers long after the 
age described. But the discoveries of archaeolo- 
gists all strongly confirm the Scripture record. 
Two discoveries of this kind may be mentioned 
here. 

First, it has been found that at this time the 
rival empires of Assyria and Egypt were both 
reduced to such a feeble condition as to allow 
David and Solomon opportunity to augment 
their forces and extend their conquests without 
interference from any great power of the 
world. 

Second, the excavations made at Jersulem by 
Captain Warren, of the Palestine Exploration 
Society, disclosed the very great and costly 
foundation-stones of the Temple, which were 
prepared and laid by Phenician builders em- 
ployed by Solomon, with the very builders' marks 
for rightly placing them still upon them in red 
paint and in Phenician characters; so that no 
fitting was necessary at the Temple site, accord- 
ing to the account in the sixth chapter of First 
Kings. 1 

To this it may be added that the list, in the 
ninth and tenth chapters of I Kings, of articles 

i" Recovery of Jerusalem," pp. 138, 139. 



72 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

brought by the navy of Solomon from Ophir," 
almug trees, gold, silver, ivory, apes, and pea- 
cocks," has been interpreted and verified by 
Max Muller, who says that the names are 
Sanscrit, the language which was spoken at that 
time by the people of India, near the mouth of 
the Indus, where the articles could be found. 

It has been denied that there ever was such 
a people as the Hittites, mentioned in Genesis 
x. 15: II Kings vii. 6, and elsewhere in the Old 
Testament. This denial was made on the 
ground that no allusion to them had been found 
in any other book than the Bible. But the 
monuments, both of Egypt and of the Hittites 
themselves, have given us accurate portraits of 
these people, and we now know that they were a 
great and warlike race, who were in Southern 
Palestine in the days of Abraham, but had been 
driven back to Northern Syria in the time of 
Joshua. 1 

The scene on Mount Carmel, when, after a 
severe famine, Elijah challenged the priests of 
Baal to prove the power of their divinity by 
bringing down fire from heaven to consume their 
sacrifice, has been discredited as " legendary " 

i Sayce's " Higher Criticism and the Monuments," pp. 
15, 16, 140-143. 



FACTS NOW PROVED 73 

and the " creative work of popular fancy." As 
yet the history admits of the comparison with 
the results of research only at two points, but at 
both of these it is confirmed. The famine 
spoken of is proved by Josephus to have oc- 
curred at the time mentioned by the quotation 
from Menander, an ancient Greek historian. 
The peculiar manner in which the priests of 
Baal are said to have worshipped, leaping and 
cutting themselves with knives, is confirmed by 
an inscription found upon an ancient temple of 
Baal at Beyrouth, and by descriptions of such 
worship by Lucian, Cattulus, and by Livy. 1 

The healing of Naama/n, the Syrian, by Elisha 
has been dismissed by a recent critic as a " cur- 
ious marvel, of no practical importance." But as 
our Lord spoke of it as an actual occurrence of 
great significance, it seems worth while to refer 
to it. The only real difficulty in the account 
is in Naaman's boast that Abana and Pharpar, 
rivers of Damascus, were better than all the 
waters of Israel. The difficulty grew out of the 
fact that there is but one river at the city of 
Damascus. But it is now known that, in 
Naaman's time, that was the name of the 
country as well as of the city, and not far from 

i"New Biblical Guide," Vol. V, pp. 389-398. 



74 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

the city the two rivers are to be found, suffi- 
ciently beautiful and important to justify the 
Syrian's partiality. 1 

The book of Esther has been declared to be a 
" work of the imagination," without the marks of 
an historical composition." Almost every per- 
son in it and nearly every event or custom re- 
lated, has been assailed as fictitious. The 
writers of articles in recent Bible dictionaries and 
encyclopaedias do not seem to have learned that 
the historical accuracy of the book has been 
thoroughly established, but such has been the 
case. Ahasuerus has been identified as the 
Xerxes the Great of Persia ; Shushan the palace 
has been found and described, and the book has 
become our highest authority for the manners, 
customs and events of the time and the country 
to which it relates. 2 

The book of Jonah has been called a fable, 
and we have been taught, in the name of Science, 
that the swallowing of Jonah by a fish is an 
impossibility on account of the contracted 
throat of the whale, the largest fish of which we 
know. As it is not said that it was a whale, 
but that " God prepared a great fish," it is not 

i Dr. Porter in Journal of Sacred Literature, New 
Series, Vol. V, p. 46. 

2 Bible Student and Teacher, June, 1905, p. 437. 



FACTS NOW PROVED 75 

necessary to meet this objection, but it is now 
removed by Science itself. It is now known 
that of some fifty-one species of whale, of only 
one, the Greenland whale, is it true that the 
throat is so contracted. 1 

I mention but one more of these disputed facts, 
and it is a most notable one. 

Befahazzar, the king of Babylon, at whose 
idolatrous feast the miraculous handwriting ap- 
peared upon the wall and was interpreted by the 
prophet Daniel, has been declared to be a myth, 
and the book of Daniel, therefore, a forgery. 
The ground of this charge was the absence of 
this king's name from any known history. 
But a cylinder which has been disinterred at Ur, 
Abraham's own city in Chaldea, and which is 
now in the British Museum, contains an in- 
scription, which is a prayer of Nabonidus, the 
last king of Babylon, that his god would be 
gracious to Belshazzar, his eldest son. This in- 
scription convinced Sir Henry Rawlinson that 
the son had been co-regent with his father at 
the time the city was captured, and this explains 
why Daniel was made the third ruler in the 
kingdom, as stated in Daniel v. 39. 2 

This list might be extended much farther, did 

i Bible Student and Teacher, Sept., 1905, p. 176. 
2 " New Biblical Guide," Vol. II, p. 86. 



76 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

the limits of this work permit. But enough has 
been said to show how often denials of Scrip- 
ture statements are made in pure wantonness of 
spirit and sheer ignorance of facts, instead of 
in sober regard for truth and a modest hesita- 
tion to impugn a great and venerable authority. 
Those who have realized, in the reading of this 
chapter, how many and how great have been the 
" mistakes " of those who have charged Moses 
and other Bible authors with error will, it is 
hoped, be slow, henceforth, to give too hasty 
credence to such charges, and will have a whole- 
some confidence that if mistakes have been made 
it is not the greatest book in the world that has 
made them. 



XI 

A FINAL SURVEY OF THE FACTS 

Now that we have glanced at some of the 
facts of Faith, it is possible to form some proper 
conception of their meaning and value. We 
ought by this time to realize their importance. 

To begin with, how numerous they are ! 

Let no one suppose we have exhausted the list, 
or even mentioned the most of them! In truth, 
we have only produced samples of that vast host 
which only He " who calleth the stars by name " 
can number. The Bible, Science of every kind, 
History, personal experiences, all departments of 
human life and human knowledge are full of 
them. 

Isaac Newton said that he had " only picked 
up a few pebbles on the beach " of truth. That 
is all any one can do. There are so many facts, 
there is so much to be known, that, after all our 
learning, the most still remains unknown. That, 
however, cannot justly deprive what is in sight 
of our admiration. 

The ore that still remains untouched in the 
mountains is, perhaps, far greater in quantity 
than that which has been mined. But when one 

77 



78 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

thinks of the immense amount that has been 
taken out, and is now being manufactured or is 
visible in structures and implements and machin- 
ery and all kinds of forms for all kinds of uses, 
the total seems overwhelmingly enormous. 

So of the known facts which are available for 
Faith's purposes; they are like the sand that is 
upon the seashore, innumerable. 

But not, like the grains of sand, do they 
seem small and insignificant. On the contrary, 
they impress us as great facts, if we have ob- 
tained any adequate idea of their magnitude. 
Their importance, in the world of morals and re- 
ligion, is only symbolized by that of the mighty 
suns and systems of the physical universe. 

For example, consider the greatness of the 
fact of the Bible! That there should be one 
book, far and away the greatest of all books, 
even as literature; and when considered in its 
moral and religious character and influence, 
what the dying Sir Walter Scott called it, the 
one book of the world! What a gigantic fact 
that is, that, among books, one stands by itself, 
far apart from all others, alone and unapproach- 
able! 

What a great fact is Jesus Christ! That a 
young man who had lived only to the age of 
thirty-three, lived a private and obscure life for 



A FINAL SURVEY 79 

all but three of those years, wrote not a word to 
leave to posterity, died a death of shame, re- 
pudiated and denounced as a criminal by his own 
nation, should have become the greatest name 
in history, and influenced all succeeding ages for 
good more than any or all others — what a 
colossal, even infinite fact this is I 

What a great fact the Church is! It sprang 
into existence, and was numbered by thousands, 
only fifty days after its founder had been shame- 
fully executed as a criminal, and in the very city 
of his execution. 

Withm thirty years it established itself in 
the great cities of the known world, and re- 
peated the wonder of the Mother Church at 
Jerusalem, by great bodies of disciples, in town 
and country, in Asia, Europe and Africa. 

It is now, after nineteen centuries of existence, 
the most powerful religious body in the world, 
numbering its adherents by many millions, and 
exercising its influence over the greatest nations 
and the leading races of mankind. 

It finds members even in the most degraded 
and depraved persons, of the lowest and most 
brutalized classes, all over the earth ; transforms 
them into bright and shining examples of the 
noblest types of human character; and enrolls 
them as citizens of that kingdom of heaven, of 



80 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

which the pure and perfect Jesus Christ is the 
only, though the invisible, King. 

Its destruction has been threatened by every 
form of physical or mental force which the 
world possesses. 

Its martyrs are numbered by millions. 

Its most -formidable enemy has always been, 
and still is, a corrwpt church which usurps its 
functions, imposes itself upon human credulity 
as the only true church, and by its scandalous 
superstitions and crimes brings discredit and 
disgrace upon the fair name of Christianity. 

It has survived all its persecutions by Judaism, 
Paganism, Romanism, and every species of false 
religion; it rode, like the ark of Noah, the 
deluge of ignorance and barbarism which we 
call the Dark Ages ; has vanquished the repeated 
onslaughts of infidelity which have followed in 
these later centuries; and now penetrates and 
dominates the life of the twentieth century, with 
the confidence of eternal youth and the prestige 
of unconquerable power. 

These great facts, like the great stones in 
the ancient wall of Jerusalem, not only astonish 
us by their magnitude, but unite to furnish a 
substantial and indestructible foundation for 
faith. How solidly and immovably the Bible, 
and Jesus Christ, and the Church, and Christian 



A FINAL SURVEY 81 

Experience, and Nature, and History, stand 
together; opposing their united weight to all 
the efforts of time and circumstance to disturb 
them ! Fancies may be displaced and dissipated, 
but facts remain unchanged and immovable 
from generation to generation and from age to 
age. 

The facts of religion, like the facts of science, 
are too numerous and too powerful to be af- 
fected by doubt and dispute, when once they are 
seen and understood. 

It was the falling of an apple which is said 
to have suggested to Newton the idea of the 
attraction of gravitation. But that was only 
one small fact out of myriads that might be 
mentioned of the same kind. Air falls, water 
falls, the sun and stars fall, the whole universe, 
in all its parts, exhibits the same phenomenon. 
When once this vast array of facts is perceived, 
the conclusion to which it leads is irresistible. 
No sane and intelligent mind any longer dis- 
putes the doctrine of gravitation. To do so 
would be to convict one's self either of ignorance 
or of the lack of common sense. 

The facts on which Christian faith rests are of 
the same compelling kind — so many, so united, 
so irresistible, that when once candidly faced 
and truly appreciated, they must be accepted. 



82 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

It is that Christian who beholds this adaman- 
tine foundation of facts which underlies his 
faith, who remains undisturbed by all the re- 
peated assaults of hostile criticism. 

His faith is truly scientific, because he has 
considered and given proper place to the facts 
which bear upon the great- questions of re- 
ligion. 

He sees that unbelief is anything but scienti- 
fic, since it refuses a candid investigation of the 
facts, and is, in its very nature, incapable of 
appreciating them. 

As for rival religions, what have they to 
shorn which can for a moment parallel the array 
of facts which substantiate Christianity? 

Which of them has a Bible, a Jesus Christ, and 
a Church to put beside these great facts of the 
Christian religion? 

Can you put Mohammed, the Koran, and their 
Arabs and Turks beside Jesus, the Bible, and the 
Christian Church, and think that they do not 
suffer by comparison ? 

It is but too evident what that religion has 
done for its votaries, for the judgment of Chris- 
tendom was long since coined into the phrase, 
" the unspeakable Turk." 

Carlyle expressed the sense of the civilized 
world, regarding the most favorable view to take 



A FINAL SURVEY 83 

of Moslemism, when he called it in his " Heroes 
and Hero-Worship," " a Mnd of bastard Chris- 
tianity" All that is true and good in it 
filtered into it from Christianity, which was al- 
ready nearly six centuries old when Mohammed 
was born. 

As for the Koran, it is sufficient to say of it 
that, compared with the " Arabian Nights En- 
tertainment," the most, and almost the only, 
widely-known book of Arabian authorship, it 
is equally wild and fanciful, equally a work of 
fiction. The stories it tells of Solomon are bor- 
rowed fables from the Jewish Talmud. But 
here its resemblance to the " Arabian Nights " 
ends, for that is one of the world's favorite 
story books, and the Koran is, perhaps, the 
most stupid book in the world. " Insupportable 
stupidity," says Carlyle, who is disposed to say 
all the good he can of it ; and he adds, " it is 
difficult to see how any mortal ever could con- 
sider this Koran a book written in heaven. 
or indeed as a book at all, and not a bewildered 
rhapsody." 

What other religion is worth mentioning as 
a possible rival to that of Jesus? When Sir 
Edwin Arnold's " Light of Asia " was pub- 
lished, it was fancied by many that he had dis- 
covered in Buddha another Jesus. But the 



84 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

mirage he produced soon faded into nothingness, 
leaving Jesus in his unapproachable glory. 

Sir Edwin Arnold said, in effect, to a veteran 
Christian missionary, the late Rev. Dr. William 
Ashmore, who was his companion in a voyage 
to the East, that he had had no idea of making 
the " Light of Asia " the equal of the " Light of 
the World," and considered one verse of the Ser- 
mon on the Moimt as worth more than all the 
sacred books of the Hindoos. 

We are, then, and we cannot repeat it too 
often or realize it too deeply, dealing with a 
world of fact and reality when we are examining 
the documents and credentials of the Christian 
faith. 

All other beliefs have little to show us except 
the cloud-land of speculations, fables and fic- 
tions. 

It is not difficult to tell where fog and cloud 
cease and solid earth begins. 

It begins with the facts of Christian faith. 
As we study them we feel that we tread on the 
firm ground of truth and reality. 

But wherefore? 

For what purpose are foundations, but to 
support superstructures? 

We lay foundations only because we desire 
to rear enduring edifices upon them. 



A FINAL SURVEY 85 

That deep and massive foundation, which is 
the wonder of explorers at Jerusalem, was laid 
that Solomon's magnificent Temple might be 
based upon it. 

When we have the facts of Christianity fully 
in our possession, in all their solidity and cer- 
tainty, we are inevitably impelled to rear upon 
them the magnificent temple of Christian doc- 
trine. 

For we instinctively ask, what do these facts 
mean? What truths do they imply? What 
becomes evident from their existence? What do 
they teach which it is important to understand? 

When we have thought out our answers to 
these questions we have discovered the doctrines 
in which we must believe. When we have stated 
our doctrines in words we have our Creed. 

Let us not be alarmed at these terms ! They 
have been used to frighten people. The soph- 
ists of this generation talk of " doctrine " and 
" dogma " as not only useless and incumbrances, 
but as if they are a kind of mental hydrophobia. 

It is common in these days to hear the promise 
of a new religion which is to be creedless. 

They who make this promise do not realize 
that it is non-sense, unworthy of an ordinary 
mind, much less of one who claims to be able to 
teach men. 



86 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

To be creedless and without doctrine, a re- 
ligion must be truthless and idea-less ; that is to 
say, it must be thoughtless and senseless. It 
must have no facts, for from facts spring doc- 
trvnes. 

Politics has its doctrines, true and false. We 
speak of the " Monroe doctrine," by which we 
mean President Monroe's idea of the peculiar 
relation of the United States to the other na- 
tions of America. 

That " all men are created free and equal " 
is a doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. 

That all government is rightfully " of the 
people, for the people, and by the people " was 
a favorite doctrine of President Lincoln. 

Science has its doctrines, and always has had 
them. Concerning the facts which it discovers 
it asks, what do they teach? The answers to 
that question which it gives are its doctrines. 

Sometimes they are true, and sometimes 
false. 

If they are false, it is either because they are 
hastily made, before sufficient knowledge of 
needed facts has been obtained, or because 
human reason has been unable to comprehend 
their real significance. 

The fact that water will not rise in a pump 
above thirty-two feet was supposed by Galileo 



A FINAL SURVEY 87 

to teach the doctrine that " Nature abhors a 
vacuum." This was to attribute thought and 
feeling to the inanimate world, and Galileo 
realized that is was unsatisfactory; but in the 
lack of additional knowledge, it was the best 
that he could do. 

Torricelli conceived the idea that what sup- 
ported the water in the pump was the weight of 
the atmosphere, and partially proved it to be 
true by his barometer, in which a column of 
mercury, which is fourteen times heavier than 
water, stands at a correspondingly low level. 

Pascal reasoned that if the weight of the 
atmosphere balances these columns at their re- 
spective heights at the sea-level, when the barom- 
eter is carried to the top of a mountain the 
columns will fall a distance according to the 
height of the mountain. This experiment being 
tried and proving successful, the new doctrine 
was established. Calculations made afterwards 
settled the question of the approximate height 
of the atmosphere. It had been imagined as ex- 
tending to the moon, but was now found to be 
practically limited to the height of forty-five 
miles. 

These illustrations may suffice to show how 
doctrmes spring from facts, and not facts from 
doctrines. 



88 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

Given a body of facts, and doctrines follow 
as necessary consequences. We can escape the 
doctrines only by refusing to look at the facts, 
or by disproving the facts. 

If we are willing to see them and cannot dis- 
prove them, we naturally and necessarily come 
to some conclusions regarding their significance. 
These conclusions are doctrines. They are the 
truths which we have learned from the facts 
which we have found out. The statements of 
these truths which we make to ourselves, and ac- 
cept as established, are our creeds, political, sci- 
entific or religious, according to the nature of 
the facts on which they are based. 

All men may be said to have a religious creed 
of some kind. 

Even the agnostic's denial, that he can know 
anything about God, becomes his creed, his con- 
clusion regarding the matter of religion ; and it 
is a creed that determines his attitude toward 
worship, prayer, Christ and the Church, equally 
with that of the devout believer. 

The facts of religion, moreover, have this pe- 
culiarity, namely, that some conclusion must be 
made, consciously or unconsciously, positively or 
negatively, concerning them; since to reject 
them, as well as to accept them or even to ignore 



A FINAL SURVEY 89 

them, is a conclusion by which duty as well as 
destiny, good and evil, joy and sorrow, the aims 
and purposes of life, its possibilities, successes 
and failures, are all determined. 

The doctrines or politics of science are com- 
paratively unimportant: we may leave them un- 
settled and suffer no serious injury. 

But the fact of an Incarnation, if it be proved, 
cannot innocently or safely be left unconsidered. 
A divine Revelation is not a fact about which 
any one can afford to have no opinion. 

Duty cmd destiny, and everything else belong- 
mg to man, are not the same thmg, whether these 
are, or are not, facts. 

If there be a Revelation it is because I need 
one; and my voyage of life is safe or perilous, 
and I make it with or without peace of mind, 
as I am, or am not, conscious that I sail by my 
chart or utterly neglect it. 

Upon the facts of religion there can be, and 
there ought to be, reared a super-structure of 
doctrine which is to the soul a refuge, a fortress 
and a home. It may be small and simple, like 
an Esquimau's snow hut, but even that poor 
house protects the inmate from winter storms and 
Arctic cold. It may be large and elaborate, and 
worthy to be called a system, for the materials 



90 THE FACTS OF FAITH 

are ample, and the constructive power of the 
Christian mind is able to rear a Palace of Truth 
which shall be both grand and beautiful. 

Let Faith, then, know her facts! 

Let her realize that they are facts, not fancies, 
fictions or phantasms ! 

Let her build upon them her house of rest! 

And when the winds of doubt blow, and the 
floods of trouble come, the house will not fall, 

FOR IT IS BUILT UPON A ROCK. 



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